Anthony Guidera Dies at 65 After Heart Issue
anthony guidera died at 65 after a heart issue at home on May 11 and was later taken off life support in a Los Angeles-area hospital. The actor and model’s credits ran from The Godfather Part III to Species, giving his death a place in several studio and television lineups that reached beyond a single role.
Species and The Godfather Part III
Guidera landed his first onscreen role as a bodyguard in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather Part III in 1990 and worked on the film for five months. That debut set the frame for a career that moved between film and television, with credits in The Rock, Armageddon, The Postman and ’Til There Was You.
His best-known screen moment came in Species, where his character forced Natasha Henstridge’s Sil to kiss him. The kiss was recognized as the year’s best kiss at the 1996 MTV Movie Awards, and the scene became one of the few credit-level details tied directly to his name.
Paris, Modeling, and Five Months
Born in San Francisco on Oct. 18, 1960, Guidera spent about a decade in Paris making commercials and modeling under the name James Guidera while also performing in plays there. He later studied with Robert Lewis at The Actors Studio in New York, a path that explains why his credits moved easily between fashion work, stage work and screen work.
He also appeared on Renegade, Baywatch, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Red Shoe Diaries, Hope & Gloria, Nash Bridges, Acapulco H.E.A.T., Angel, ER and L.A. Dicks. His last credit was a 2005 episode of L.A. Dicks, which leaves that run as the endpoint for a career built on supporting parts rather than headline billing.
Valarie and the Last Credit
Valarie, his wife, is the named survivor in the story, and the timeline around his final days is straightforward: a heart issue at home on May 11, life support withdrawn, death on Saturday in a Los Angeles-area hospital. For readers tracking his work rather than his biography, the practical answer is that his screen legacy now sits in a fixed list of films and TV episodes, with Species still the title most tied to a single moment.
That is the measure of Guidera’s career now: one early studio break with Francis Ford Coppola, a remembered scene in Species, and a final screen credit in 2005. The work is already complete; what remains is the filmography.
